Madame President

I was called to a meeting of my condo association last week, and, as I expected, I was elected president of the association.

Truthfully, it's not that big a deal - we're a small (four unit) building, each of us is an officer, things roll around. Kate, the outgoing president, is moving to a new place in Newington and renting her unit out, the other two owners are an older retired woman who had a mild stroke (she's OK, but not great in the memory department) and a young single guy who is not really that interested. So....it's me.

Not that hard a job really - we have a handful of regular expenses: insurance, water & sewer, a small shared electric service. We have a few regular maintenance tasks - lawn care in the summer (I've been doing it) and snow removal in the winter (seems to be kind of ad hoc at this point). And the seasonal stuff, power washing, trimming trees and bushes, etc.

Along with my responsibilities, I was handed a meticulously balanced checkbook (I have not kept a personal check register in many years), and an antique accordian-fold file (about the size of a microwave oven). My first official duty was to run down to Staples for a plastic file box replacement, some hanging folders, and a PAID stamp (no particular reason, what's the point of being president if you do not get to stamp stuff).

I spent this evening going through the falling apart accordian folder to see what we have. Water and electric bills going back over a decade. Checking account statements for close to 20 years, ranging from Fleet, Bank of America, Webster, and Farmington. 15 years of insurance documents (State Farm and Travelers) including a roof leaking problem in 2006 that was probably ice dam related, and I've thought about it this year as well. Federal tax forms, state of CT incorporation stuff, some old legal documents, and small piles of snowplow, landscape, and maintenance records.

We're not a very progressive association - the condo fees are very low (agreeably so for all concerned) and we're not making a lot of major repairs or upgrades. The bank balance seems healthy. So for now, it's stay the course.

I have some geekery to set up - Kate emailed me a very old and barely useful spreadsheet of expenses / income (I can do much better), she's been keeping the record of condo fee payment in a chart that is one step above crayon. I see in the archives that a past president did an annual budget projection that I'd like to resurrect, and I'd like to send out a periodic condo association letter to keep folks updated.  

I'd love to do some things this summer - trim the trees, create a bricked garbage / recycling can area (presently some plywood on the ground), perhaps repave the parking lot and add a few spaces (presently 6 spaces for four units, I and the guy on the end get one space, would be nice to have two)

I've been coasting for a few years now in terms of "adult responsibilities" - time to step up again! 

Paypal Fail

I recently cashed in some retirement money (before the recent market drop, thank you very much) and paid off most of my consumer debt. It's a good feeling.

My plan was to retain two cards - a Cap One account that had a bit left on it (and would be paid off over the next year) and a Paypal / GE Capitol account (zero balance) for monthly subscriptions, online purchases, etc. (so I could pay down the other card cleanly).

Unfortunately, the rating systems at Paypal / GE Capitol appear to have freaked out by my behavior (paying off a balance on their card, plus two others)  and although my credit line was unchanged, my available credit has been about $60 for the past two weeks.

Today, I decided to call and find out what was up - but their phone systems were circuitous and unhelpful. I waited on hold for 30 minutes at the Paypal number, only to be directed to a second number at GE Capitol. At the GE Capitol number,  I could not seem to figure out how to connect to a real person, but I did find a place to automatically cancel the card. Which I did.

Sorry, Paypal, but good riddance. Between the credit line / available credit snafu, the messed up support systems, and the inability to get anyone live on the line, I kind of lost interest. I'll keep the Cap One account until I get the right card offer in the mail to use as a "pay it off every month"  vehicle.

Life Hack: Rebate Division

I recently received a rebate from Pep Boys for some things I bought over the holidays. In the past, the rebate shows up as a check, which I eventually deposited into my account. But this time (and more frequently, of late) rebates are coming in the form of a debit card.

Now, these things are kind of annoying. They are rarely sufficient to buy much (in this case, $10), and it's a hassle to pay for something with multiple cards, card / cash, etc. On more than one occasion, I put the card in a pile with my unused gift cards, and promptly forgot about it. Or I rang up a small purchase, and left a buck or two on the card. In either case, the card expires, I lose my money.

But now, I have a new Square account / swiper. I simply charged myself $10 and ran it through my Square account - and within a day, $9.72 was deposited in my bank account. The small Square fee (in this case, 28 cents) is less than the gas it would cost to run down to a bank or ATM, less than a first class stamp. And I can dispose of the card promptly.

Private Sector vs. Public Sector

So I got a letter a few weeks back from TaxServ Capital Services. The gist of it was that I owed some back property taxes on my cars, stemming from the time I lived in Hartford. It basically amounted to one half tax year ($240), plus minor amounts $25 for other years - although by the time interest and fees were tacked on it was $400.

I paid up, not happily, but without rancor. I owed the taxes, the bills probably got lost in the mail forwarding / moving process when I relocated to New Britain. No idea why I underpaid two years of bills $12 (perhaps late fees or interest or something). I'm happy enough to be free and clear - that sort of thing tends to catch up with you at registration time, which usually involves a trip down to City Hall (where they have odd rules like cash only and even odder business hours) to make things right. So here's my credit card number, I'm all set, right?

But it struck me that this was clearly a place where the local tax collector (looking at you, City of Hartford) had not the interest, time, aptitude, or motivation to go out and get this money. And some wizard in the private sector figured out how to make it work, collect debts that Hartford probably had tossed into the uncollectable bin, and make a few bucks on it. I not a scofflaw, the tax bills just got lost in the shuffle.

Stuff like this reminds me that not EVERYTHING the Republicans stand for is bogus. I'd love to see a political movement that is socially liberal and fiscally moderate / conservative. Northeast Republicans used to hold that ground - perhaps these days the Democratic Leadership Council (which both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both play nice with) are seeking the same ground.

Car Troubles

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I lost use of my car for 11 days. Here's the blow-by-blow.

My Check Engine light has been lit for, well, months. No excuses there - I needed to get it in, but the time and money never coincided, and the car continued to run. A bit roughly, but it never conked out, never stranded me. I assumed it was a bad spark pug or something.

So when I got some money and the end of the summer rolled around, I took it in. I've been meaning to find a regular, independent mechanic and garage, but never got that sorted out. So, needing to get the brakes checked out, and having had the brakes done in the past (with a lifetime warranty) at Pep Boys, I took it there. Mistake #1.

I took the car in late in the day on Wednesday. Waited around for it - by diner time, they had gotten stuck (Cylinder #3 was not firing and had low compression) and were dialoging with a national specialist. They took me home, and I started figuring out options. Thursday morning the diagnosis came in - bad ECM (computer). Bad computer = big money ($1200) but what are you going to do. The problem was, with Saturn out of bizness, parts were not easy to come by, and the Pep Boys folks could not program (or "flash") the computer. So I'd have to wait over the Labor Day weekend. They hustled to get a computer on Friday, but when they replaced it, the new one was dead out of the box. So I waited until Tuesday.

Tuesday, the call came - the computer was replaced. The problem was still there. Upon further inspection, it turns out that here was a bent valve, it had damaged the #3 spark plug, coil, and head. They *said* that had damaged the computer (I remain dubious, think they were just throwing parts at it, and one of the parts they threw was the computer). Nevertheless - big job. To make a long story short, they ended up remachining the head,  which took until Saturday). $2900 later, my car runs great.

I'm going to write a couple of letters. Pep Boys gets a letter- both for the length of repair (11 days? really?) and the computer (which as I noted, I do not feel was bad). And Saturn / GM gets a letter, since th Pep Boys folks feel (based on the engine head damage) that the net valve may have been there from the get go (the car has 80K on it, but never really ran smoothly,  and the first tank of gas post repair got 4 MPG more than any previous tankful, and I monitor that fairly closely)

While the car was out of commission, I ended up riding my bike a bit - mostly back and froth to the studio (15 miles round trip). But I only rode up to teach (15 miles bike ride PLUS a hot / power practice would have been too much) so my own practice, as well as my social life, suffered.

On the up side, being home alone gave me the time to clean - and that has precipitated an amazing life change here, to be blogged next!
 

Comcast Makes a Comeback

I've been on the verge of killing off my cable for a while now. Between over the air digital, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and ABC / NBC / PBS Apps, I've been sorely tempted.

But this week, Comcast picked up a few points. They've recently switched from analog to digital for their basic cable - and as a result, they sent out a notice to arrange to pick up a mini-converter box, free of charge. Took me two months to actually do that (which tells you how much I watch TV on the small set in my basement office) - but I finally did.

Well, bonus channels! The old "analog" 2nd set option (no converter box) gave me pretty much the over-the air channels - the local broadcast channels, TBS, weather, CSPAN. The new "digital" 2nd set option gives me pretty much up through Channel 100 on my cable program. And added features - the Comcast remote control actually works with my old Zenith set - I never could get the Zenith Universal remote I had purchased (after a dog ate the factory remote) to so MUTE which is kind of annoying in my office.

The extra channels are actually quite handy. I had (engineer / video geekily) run the video out of my TV into a modulator, and from thence into an A/B switch (I like me a good Rube Goldberg design), so I could get some of the cable channels down in the office - when I am working late I can geek out to MSNBC or Comedy Central. Now, all that has been rendered obsolete. I could have kept it to see On Demand or Netflix downstairs - but not gonna bother.

So Comcast lives for another day.

Of course, this very week I also received 3 "Comcast New Customer" letters in the mail. You'd think they could figure out I was already a customer - and (a) save the money for the bulk mailing, as well as (b) avoid pissing me off by telling me over and over that I am overpaying for my bundle. But no.....

Work Balance / Life Balance

I've had a bit of a work balance issue for a while now. As an independent consultant, I've set a personal goal of not having any one client exceed 25% of my monthly billables. My engineering rate is set so that if I bill 20 hours a week, I'm on the low end of comfortable, which gives me a target of 80 billable hours a month. So keeping any one client to about 20 hours per month means I'm not in as much risk of them rolling over (cancelling the project, going elsewhere) and squashing me. All good, so far.

One client, however, who has sent me steady work in an ongoing / sustaining project (since 2003) has slowly increased the work. I've been billing 30-40 hours per month, pretty steadily, for the past year or so. Which means this one client is around 50% of my target engineering billables. In reality, it's a bit higher than this, since my 40 hours of available time each week are also doled out to web wenching, yoga teaching. etc. I do not really want to discourage the work; it's a bit repetitive, but it can be done at my convenience, they pay 30 days on the nose, and not a lot of hand-holding or maintenance. So I've simply lived with the tension of having a lot of eggs in one basket, and when other work comes in, putting in more hours and cranking to stay on top of things.

But, running with steady income like this can cause some other issues. My website is woefully outdated and in need of a complete overhaul. Another client has a website redesign pending that I need to put some time into. And I'm not doing much, if anything, towards marketing, networking, or building the business out into new areas.

The past few weeks, however, the big client has been offline (vacation) and since he keeps a bit of a tight rein on my work, there's nothing coming in. So, May will be a very light billing month (about 50% of usual) and I suspect I will get dumped on with a big backlog come the first week in June.

In the meantime, however, I have been enjoying a bit of a work holiday. I'm still teaching yoga, of course, and other projects are coming through and getting handled. But I've had the chance to really catch up in my personal life. I've cleaned the heck out of my living space - with three room totally cleaned, the others pending, and a bunch of small and large projects (seasonal stuff, as well as things I've had on my "I'll get to that someday" list) knocked off. I've been blogging more (notice?). And I've started sitting back and thinking about my engineering consulting practice, moving forward. I suspect I'll get that website redesign moving in the next week or so, and want to refocus my work to better sync up with the other things going on in my life - more local business, more niche business, less "jump in an airplane and resolve problems" type of work.

It feels like I've been just swamped and not really taking care of stuff (for years, really) - and  these two weeks have allowed me to catch my breath, finish things up, make some long term plans, and look to the future. I've got some new energy - thinking of a long overdue "how to" book project that would work great on Kindle self publish, signed up for a SquareUp credit card account. Just seems like there is a lot more room in my work life for new growth....

The end of June might be a bit tight, but there are some largish invoices outstanding that I expect to see any day that will soften that. And many of the projects I've been able to catch up on will translate into invoices in the next few weeks.

Dear Citizens Bank

I closed my account this afternoon. You gave me my $24.97, and thanked me and said good-bye. One might think that you would have some process or form that asked the question "Why are you leaving us?" - but you did not.

So, for the record. I opened up a "Totally Free Checking" account a bunch of years ago. That account started costing me $17.50 a month at some point in the past year. There was no announcement, no notification, and you made no attempt to slot me into another low cost account ($4.99 a month, free with a minimum balance or five monthly transactions). You just switched me.

In the process of being pissed off about the $17.50 fee, I found another bank with actual free checking, which coincidentally has branch offices that are more convenient to both my home and one of my workplaces.

I hope this clears things up.

Four Plastic Bins

I've had four plastic bins piled in a corner, under a table, for years. They have moved from house to house, for the past decade. Each is labeled with an ugly chapter in my life - and the paperwork and detritus of each has been loosely gathered therein.

The labels: Divorce (circa 1992), 12 Geddes (a house that I was upside down in for years, and that nearly got foreclosed upon in the late 90s), IRS (some problems circa 1997-2000), and Bankrupcty (mid 00's). Most of that is well behind me, but the IRS stuff lingers.

I've recently been doing some deep cleansing - cleaning and organizing, tossing and recycling, taking care of old messes. I'm in the process of cleaning up that old IRS mess, which has been hanging over my head for the last decade. So I pulled the bins out this morning.

I tossed a lot of errata - faxes, correspondence, blank forms, information paperwork, etc. and consolidated the things I need to keep into one single bin - joined with my last full time job's separation files (I'm actually vested in a small pension), my condo purchase information, my transition stuff. Eventually, I'll clean this stuff up for good and find a permanent home in a safe or metal box.

It feels good, I've felt kind of stuck and lethargic for the past few months - it's as if I've been digging really deep, and cleaning up some really deep pain and loss.

My friend Cheryl has been visiting, taking advantage of my spare room when she needs to be up in the area early - and noted my newly cleaned room, saying "It looks like you are getting ready for something"

And that's what it feels like. What that something is - not sure. But I'm getting ready....

Prescient

On July 14, 2011, fearful of the Tea Party's insistence of "no retreat, no surrender" vis a vis increased taxes, I pulled my 401K out of the stock market, and wrote:

The Dow is at 12,491.61, the NASDAQ is at 2,796.92. Let's see where things are 2-3 weeks from now...

So they came to a pretty crappy resolution to debt ceiling crisis, and as of today, the Dow is at 11,383.68 (down 8.8%), the NASDAQ is at 2,556.39 (down 8.6%).

On the Sidelines

I just pulled my retirement account out of the stock market until this debt ceiling thing gets resolved. The media drumbeat, the Moody's rating, it's all getting a little worrisome, and I'm going to be off the grid for the next few weeks. If the Tea Partiers' antics crash the stock market I am gonna at least get back in at the bottom.....

I'm usually a "ride it out, long term investment" kind of gal, but when one is a fanatic / zealot, one will (for example) strap-on an explosive vest and wander into a busy marketplace. Part of me thinks these bozos would love to take the economy down just to hurt Obama's chances in 2012.

The Dow is at 12,491.61, the NASDAQ is at 2,796.92. Let's see where things are 2-3 weeks from now...

Cutting the Cable - Or Not

I called up my cable / phone / internet provider yesterday to "cut the cable", at least as far as television was concerned.

I've never been much of a television watcher - when I lived with Zippy we had basic cable only, the only reason I bit for the digital cable was the bundle deal when I moved in. I need pretty robust internet for work (I upload and download large files regularly, up to 1GB) and I have two phone lines (one of these days I will relinquish the dedicated fax line, but today is not that day).

So Monday, I open up a cable bill for $172 bucks - the new customer special had run out a few months back, and rates just went up. And for whatever reason, it hit some internal threshold. The fact that my cable provider can not seem to resist sending me weekly marketing letters soliciting new business and dangling introductory offers in front of me has not helped my mood...

I've been thinking of killing off cable for a while anyway - I have a Netflix subscription and watch stuff there; I could get a digital antenna / converter, I have the ABC app on my iPAD, I could sign up for Hulu+ - lot of watching options. So I was perfectly willing to kill off my video cable subscription. The base rate would have dropped to $110. Not great, but needed for work.

However, the nice customer service agent dug up a "good customer" deal (also known as the "please do not shut off your cable like everyone else seems to be doing this day" which involved no change in my service and costs $40 less per month. Sold.

So I have not unplugged my cable television yet. But definitely moving in that direction....

Groupon Redux

So I cranked out the following analysis in a fit of pique over on Facebook. Decided not to put it there (why stir things up) but I'll put it here. In lieu of actual blogging, which I have been doing little of, lately.

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So here's one way to think of it. East-West sold 345 "groupons" this morning. They sold $10 (lunch) and $15 (dinner) "deals", worth $20 and $30 worth of product. Let's average it at $12.50 and $25.

Now, Groupon takes the money from the Groupon, and sends something to the restaurant. I don't know the details but for low value deals like this it's at maximum 50% (and could be nothing, I've read that for $10 deals, Groupon takes $100%).

So East-West has just assumed liability for $25 (average) x 345 = $8625. They (hopefully) get paid $7.50 x 345 = $2588. So today's Groupon advertising cost them a bit over $6000.

Now folks will bring friends, buy more than the Groupon amount, etc. (all good) - and a certain percentage wll not be redeemed. But that $6000 in lost receipts is coming from somewhere. Assuming that the restaurant is making 10% profit on gross receipts (very optimistic, from what I have read), then East West needs to boost sales $60,000 to break even on the Groupon.

It works out fine if there are a lot of empty seats or folks visit during off-peak hours. But I don't go to East West on weekend nights - it's often full with a wait for a table. So one can assume that some of the Groupon customers are going to be taking seats from full priced customers for a while.

One can do an awful lot of advertising and buy a lot of goodwill with existing customers for $6000. But I think Groupon sales folks are pretty good at communicating "you don't have to pay anything, look at all the new customers, and we'll send you a check!" and businesses do not figure out how much all this advertising will be costing them in the long run.

I do think Groupon makes sense for a lot of businesses - if you can steer customers to off peak or slack times, if you have extra capacity, if you are new in the market or are branching out into new areas.

OK, I'm done kvetching (no, really!).....but please, if you DID buy a Groupon this morning, please tip your server based on the full, regular price of the meal. One of the gripes about Groupons is that folks tip based on the post-groupon bill - so the server / staff gets the raw end of the deal. And undertipped waitrons might be cranky and take it out on customers - even the full-fare ones. Yet another hidden cost of the Groupon experience.

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I've been a long time customer and fan of East-West Grill from the very start, and I want them to stay in business. Have no idea how well they are doing these days. But I would hate to think that one bad decision to advertise with Groupon might push them under.....so call all this sturm und drang self serving.....

Groupon - No!

This morning's Groupon deal is one of my favorite little Thai restaurants (East-West Grille) - a converted old diner that service great lunch and dinner, and has recently branched into some amazing breakfasts. I noticed it in my In Box, and one of my Facebook friends posted it to his wall.

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

I've been looking into Groupon lately for some clients, and it's not always good news for the businesses who sign up for the service. Some businesses have been driven under ...by the flood of Groupon business - often one-time customers who do not come back without a "coupon" - and in the meantime, having to staff up for the high volume, alienating regular customers (due to Groupon volume), and subsidizing the Groupon customers. Hey, we all know the folks who boast of getting a basket full of groceries for $0, through shrew sales shopping, rebates, and coupons. Not exactly the target demographic for a successful, ongoing business.

Groupon is reportedly pretty aggressive at selling themselves and their unique "deals" (encouraging businesses to agree to 50% off or more deals, etc.), and not permitting a cap on the number of deals sold. Would be one thing if one could limit the number of Groupon deals that one processes per day (like a service business that takes reservations, you could string it out for months) - but it's plausible that a restaurant could be full of groupons for days or weeks following the offer.

For low dollar deals, the business will probably get zero dollars for every Groupon sold or redeemed. (Groupon takes a high percentage of the receipts, 100% for offers under $10). Imagine trying to run a small restaurant for a few weeks with ZERO receipts, as your tables are full of folks with Groupon offers.

Here's one business's experience: Posies Cafe - a bakery / cafe that is probably not too different from my hometown restaurant in terms of scale and economics.

Bottom Line: I have been an East-West customer from Day 1, love their food, and especially their breakfasts. Would hate to see them driven under by a (perhaps foolhardy, and yes most certainly free will) decision to work with Groupon. But if, three or six months down the road, we read about the restaurant closing, I told you so, and I will sorrowfully take my Cassandra-like derriere elsewhere for Thai food.

As for me, I'm not purchasing a Groupon. I'll buy one for a place that I've never been to and would like to try out. But I value local businesses too much; I'll pay full price for my next lunch and consider it a fair trade....